‘Know Your Child’ is a weekly space where our expert, Dr. Tazeen Siddiqui, answers your questions on parenting, education and anything related to children. Children are our future, a sensitive, compassionate approach can go a long way in making this world a better place to live.

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How to make children Gadgets free?

Answer- Before we understand how to make kids Gadgets free, we need to first find the reason that why did kids get addicted to it. Every child needs a companion and support, to share his heart and he needs someone by his side at every emotional swing that he goes through in every growing phase of his life, when a child is unable to find the support or the compassion he urges to have, he intends to occupy his mind in the things that can divert his attention and thoughts to something that can make him forget the rest of all things going around or with him.

There is a single solution to this problem and that is you need to have a great bonding with your child and channelize his energy in the right thoughts and direction for example, before a child gets to the gadgets get involved with him in doing something creative and try to understand the child’s strength and channelize it likewise, if the child is good at drawing ask him to make something for his room so that you can hang or paste it in his room to make him feel special.

“You give your special time to kids and they give you their special heart

How to handle aggressive and restless children?

Answer- Children get aggressive if they find something against their wishes and to win over his wishes the child uses different techniques to intimidate others, they try to show their power through raising their voice, hitting and also using strong facial expressions in order to get their wishes accomplished and to control this behavior we need to be proactive not reactive and we need to channelize the child’s immense energy into some creative work, sports and support him in helping him come out of his problems.

We must have great communication with these kind of children as communication gap makes a wide gap in understanding the child’s thought’s in different phases of his life. So to understand a child’s mind we need to connect with the child’s heart at first. Restlessness occurs in a child’s personality due to the immense energy that the child possess which has not been channelized appropriately. We must never make a restless child sit immediately in the class when he enters the school. We must channelize his energy by giving him some work or make him play in ball room for 20 minutes as this 20 minutes games will channelize his energy and will help him focus in class. These children can’t sit at one place for long so we need to make him do some work every 30 minutes and channelize it into creative work.

Connection of Learning disability with the Behavior?

Answer – A child or young person with a learning disability will find it harder than other children to understand, learn and remember new things. He/she may need more support with everyday activities such as communicating, keeping safe and managing everyday tasks. The term learning disability refers to a range including mild, moderate, severe and profound/multiple learning disabilities.

It is harder for children with learning disabilities to develop the communication and social skills which other children. And for these kind of children we need to encourage them in their strengths so that they get immense confidence to win over everything they dream to do. For example I met a parent whose daughter had learning disability but she was a great singer and when this quality was encouraged she gained immense confidence and started doing well in other subjects too.

Did you know that Albert Einstein couldn’t read until he was nine? Walt Disney, General George Patton, and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller had trouble reading all their lives. Whoopi Goldberg and Charles Schwab and many others have learning disabilities which haven’t affected their ultimate success.

“We need to explore our great abilities to excel and rise out of disabilities”

The above questions were asked by educationist and parents from Dhanbad, Gujarat and Hyderabad respectively. If you have a question, don’t hesitate to mail Dr. Tazeen Siddiqui at [email protected]

Dr. Tazeem Siddiqui, an educationist and trainer is heading a global forum of over 300 educators. Her paper ‘Multiple Intelligences 54’ was presented at Harvard University. Siddiqui’s paper ‘Typing fingers vs Writing fingers’ is selected at Oxford Women Leadership Symposium. The paper explains the impact of excessive use of gadgets on the writing and behaviour of a child.